S'mores Pops

Recipe credit: Tip Junkie. Photo credit: Yours truly.

All of the goodies I made for Christmas this year came from Pinterest. I enjoyed making the S'mores Pops  the most because the end result is just so darn cute! They are just like the traditional treat but much easier (and fun) to eat. I don't care for them myself, taste wise, (I am not a marshmallow fan) but I had a ball making them and they were a huge hit.

Last week I made about 100 of them for a bake sale that took place this weekend. I ordered lots of cute sprinkles and sugars from Amazon* and I experimented with tinting the white chocolate coating to make different colored pops. My kitchen was like a Willy Wonka sweat shop but instead of Oopma Loompas keeping me company, I had a 19 month old and a three-legged dog in a sweater. (Cut me some slack on the dog sweater. It's winter, he's a Chihuahua and cold is his Kryptonite. Besides, it makes him look smart.)

Here's a run down on the process:
 

Lay out the graham crackers on a baking sheet. Put marshmallows on half of them and about 10 chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate chips) on each of the others. Keep the chips in the middle of the crackers so that when you assemble the pops later the chocolate will stay sandwiched inside and not ooze out all over your hand or the lollipop stick.

A close up shot of chocolate never hurt anyone.

Place them in a 400 degree oven for a few minutes until the marshmallows puff up and begin to brown a bit. This happens very quick. For my oven, it was exactly three minutes. You might want to experiment with just a couple of them at first to see how they do in your oven (temperatures can vary from oven to oven) and adjust the time accordingly. If the marshmallow doesn't soften enough, inserting the stick won't go very smoothly. You will have a big solid lump of marshmallow poking out the side your sandwiched crackers. A chocolate covered marshmallow tumor does not make for an attractive S'mores Pop.

Once they are out of the oven, jump right in! Put the stick into the marshmallow and place the cracker with the chips right on top. Push down a bit and level out the crackers. I push the stick in so that it almost, but not quite, comes out the other side in order for it to anchor well. Since it's cold out right now, I sat the pops on my back porch to help them set up quicker.

Next is the fun part: dipping and decorating. I have no action shots of this process because it is very messy and, well, made my kitchen table look like this:

Notice I made this picture very tiny.

I buy the candy bark that comes in its own tray since it makes melting and clean up so much simpler. (Kroger has their own brand.) I tinted some of the white coating with food coloring to make pink, light blue and pale yellow. (Here's a tip: spoon the chocolate over the pops rather than dipping them in the chocolate.) Once I coated the pop, I shook off as much excess chocolate as possible, laid it on wax paper and immediately sprinkled or poured on the embellishments.

After they set up, I put them in cellophane treat bags and tied them off with ribbon.

The bake sale was a huge success and all but 6 of the S'mores Pops sold! They make great birthday party favors or Valentine's Day treats. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section!

*Amazon has a great selection of sprinkles, treat bags and lollipop sticks. I have Amazon Prime which gives me free two-day shipping so I buy there, but I know WalMart and Target sell candy and cake decorating items, as well.